this post was submitted on 19 Dec 2023
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Apple
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i really just do not get it, nor the fascination with it here of all places-- for a community that's so focused and energized by FOSS and FOSS platforms and FOSS projects, why does this community want to break into Apple's closed-source, walled-garden, proprietary ecosystem so badly, especially after maligning it every chance you people get? Practically every post about Apple here just trashes Apple for how terrible they are for being closed-source and proprietary with their ecosystem-- except when it comes to iMessage and their precious "blue bubbles" which, apparently, nobody can live without and must be accessed at all costs.
why not just make your own FOSS "blue bubble" chat app, but with blackjack and hookers that doesn't use Apple's servers or ecosystem? Why is iMessage the one white whale that the Android community (and people here on Lemmy) simply can't seem to get over?
I don't understand this either.
iMessage being closed down is a fantastic reason to push people to use Signal/Telegram/WhatsApp/Viber/etc. The excuse to get anyone to try anything else is "hey I have an android, can we use something else"
If iMessage integration ends up happening from a proprietary service like Beeper, now the argument becomes "well, just download Beeper, you can talk to us from there".
Its an entertaining chickens-coming-home-to-roost situation for Apple's skeleton key service and I'm glad for it to be getting some much deserved scrutiny.
On the other hand, its another distraction in the same way that "you need to update to our new iOS yeaterday spiel" is a distraction from the fact that
LockDown mode > new update/patch that doesn't address all the main attack surface vulns
Yeah, tho, I would never recommend iMessage to anyone I cared about and thats only one of the many reasons I would never give it the time of day. Signal is superior in basically every way except its not as ubiquitous but its also not a default opt-out first-party thing like iMessage.
like... i get the scrutiny angle, but how does that jive with he constant demands to be part of it? does than not strike you as the least bit... hypocirtical?
Can you flesh that out a bit more, I'm not sure what you're getting at bur I want to :)
damn, i accidentally deleted my comment. i wish there was a confirmation dialog for that!
so, again (sorry)...
There's plenty to criticize Apple for, and Apple gets a lot of hate on lemmy, esp from android users, for not being FOSS and being closed off from non-Apple users. however, for a community so dedicated to android and FOSS that seems to hate everything Apple, this is the seemly one exception where the android community demands access to the closed ecosystem rather than to develop a FOSS alternative, an ideal and directive found all over lemmy and the internet at large.
If Apple and their iCloud ecosystem are so terrible and inferior (a claim i've seen countless times, esp regardin iMessage and how RCS is superior), then why the furvor over getting access to iMessage? it strikes me as contradictory to the values touted here so often.
I’m also confused by this.
Also, why people think that people need to be convinced to use iMessage. I just tell people to text me and give them my number. If they have an iPhone, great. We can play SeaBattle! If not, then I guess our messages won’t be encrypted and we won’t be doing anything illegal together. 🤷🏻♂️
Just a bunch of people in here trying to justify why they’re upset that other people don’t want to do things the same way they do.
I would prefer that iMessage fall back to RCS rather than SMS, but whatever. Apparently that’s coming and I’m not downloading another app to message one person. Especially not one owned by Facebook.
Yeah, I think it certainly deserves scrutiny, but the way this is unfolding is incredibly stupid. I'm willing to bet everyone's just waiting for the internet-commenter-outrage-machine to move onto something else.
I don't want to see Congress screaming at Apple to open it up. I want Congress to do their job and pass a proper law stating a service with greater than X users or X% of Americans after Y number of years must open their platform.
congress would have to pass a law for that to happen. but why should congress pass a law forcing companies to just give their services away just because they're popular?
I don't think you are hearing me. iMessage is already beyond non-private and has several built-in backdoors to ensure anyone who demands access can have multiple avenues to do so.
Whether Congress engages witb this seriously or not is irrelevant. Its a terrible platform and it gives people not only a false sense of privacy, but it is also a gaping security hole in iOS that I can only hope is completey shut down by "toggling" it once its already been forced on you when you sign in to iCloud.
Literally not invested in it, the more attention anf scrutiny it receives, the better cuz its a bullshit thing that has no place for me on my phone and on the phone of anybody who wants to have private convos and not have their chat program be a giant security gap on their phone. Its gotten people killed
The best argument I’ve heard is that it is the one halfway decent messaging app that a lot of non-tech people use.
So either you need to explain to grandma what a discord or telegram is or you get iMessage to work on the device you want to use.
The green bubble thing is also more than just the color of the bubbles. Many of the features of iMessage don’t work if the other person is on android.
ok, i get that android users want to use iMessage, but that seems fundamentally incompatible (or at least paradoxical) with the constant Apple-hate and closed-source-hate that is rampant here and with android users in general.
I don't want to use iMessage but I'm almost tired enough of 12 kb pictures and insanely poor quality videos from iPhones to try it.
A big part of the problem is that no other options for SMS/MMS even exist on iOS, so all those communications default to iMessage (and it's fairly terrible at some of it.)
I find myself thinking the same thing every time this comes up. The level of obsession is absurd.
I can tell all my friends to use the open source replacement, but network effects entrench a monopoly and Grandma is only going to use the stuff that’s preinstalled.
if your argument is that FOSS alternative aren't worth pursuing because it's difficult, that's not a great argument. if i had to choose fighting a stubborn grandma or Apple's lawyer's, i'd choose the stubborn grandma-- but i've never met your grandma, lol!
I’m not going to be the guy harassing all my friends to go on Signal. Get real.
For years me and my friends have a number of group chats in iMessage, and about a year ago someone started hanging with our crew who has an android. I suggested signal and was pleasantly surprised how much support I got in the suggestion, both from the iPhone users dreading going green and from the android user worried about being left out. A couple people even already had it even though they didn’t use it, just tried it out after reading an article etc. anyway fast forward to now and all our group chats are in signal, and it’s been great. It’s a fantastic app, the transition was as simple as sending an invite link to the iMessage chat. We even use the stories function now and again. It’s great, I recommend giving it a try :)
I had less luck trying to get my family to switch to signal when we went green, but there’s a lot more tech-challenged people in that group. However most already had what’s app for international use, and moving to that was super easy - i would still prefer signal over giving my contacts list to meta, but the chats and backups are e2e so I’ll take it over sms/unencrypted rcs
Cool, make me a fusion reactor. It’s hard but can be done.
because discussing a chat app with your friends and building a fusion reactor are totally the same.
But but but blue bubbles.
Which I also don't understand how that of all things is so super important, frankly I hadn't even really noticed it back when I had an iPhone.
Fine, you are not personally affected by it, but the social disparity that is highlighted by people's need to feel exclusive and yet part of a tribe is the reason.
That’s like complaining about not having any other premium branded item out there. If your not doing so filters people out of your life, well you just did yourself a favor.
Who gives a shit? It’s text messaging. These people need to go outside or something.
I don't disagree, just explaining it, and recognising it is the sub 25 year old age bracket explains a lot.
When you're a teenager and the people that are filtered out of your life are 80-90% of your classmates, it's a big deal.
Yeah I am sure having an android is filtering out upwards of 90% of your potential friends as a high school student /s
That is such an absurd claim it doesn't deserve a rebuttal.